Sen. Ted Cruz heads to Iowa, tries to tamp down rumors of 2016 presidential run

Sen. Ted Cruz and his father, Rafael Cruz, are teaming up and heading to Iowa for a speaking engagement at The Family Leadership Summit on Saturday.

With Cruz making several speeches in Iowa, some suspect that he is preparing to run for president in 2016, but the president and CEO of the The Family Leader organization, Bob Vander Plaats, said Cruz does not want to put fuel on the fire.

Vander Plaats told The Brody File that he asked Cruz several times to speak at the event in Iowa, but his requests were denied because Cruz “didn’t want to put gasoline on the fire of ‘he might run for president.’”

Vander Plaats told Cruz not to come if he was coming out to speak because he wanted to run for president. “If you want to come to my summit because you have access to the biggest microphone to talk about the issues, then you need to come,” Vander Plaats told Cruz.

The day-long summit will also include speakers such as Stephen Baldwin, Sen. Rick Santorum, Donald Trump, syndicated talk show hosts and others.

The purpose of the event is to “educate and mobilize the conservative base regarding worldview application and issues that impact the family.”

“The work of the Family Leadership Summit to fight for conservative values and promote strong families is making a positive impact across our country. My dad and I are honored to be included in this year’s summit and are looking forward to it,” Sen. Cruz told The Family Leader organization.

The organization said it is thrilled that the Texas senator and his evangelist father are joining the speaker line up for the summit.

“Sen. Cruz’s bold and principled leadership is a welcome change in our current political climate. And Pastor Cruz’s bold courage to flee Cuba to come to America thoroughly embodies the spirit of the American Dream. Iowans are in for a real treat to be able to hear this pair of American heroes,” said Vander Plaats.

Vander Plaats has a strong influence in the Iowa Republican primaries. In 2008 he endorsed Mike Huckabee and in 2012 he endorsed Rick Santorum.

In the interview with The Brody File, Vander Plaats said that he hasn’t seen anything like Cruz’s rise in politics in a long time, probably ever.

“He combines a lot of qualities of a lot of people into one package. Here is a guy with exceptional depth, very intelligent, and not just depth and intelligence, but experience,” said Vander Plaats.

He also claimed that Cruz is “a liberal’s worst nightmare because he also hasn’t been tainted by Washington, D.C., and he is kind of playing the dynamics different; it’s not about politics as usual.”